


The Finding of Nick Wolfe

by hlravensnest_archivist



Category: Highlander: The Raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-11-16
Updated: 1999-11-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 21:53:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11837772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hlravensnest_archivist/pseuds/hlravensnest_archivist
Summary: Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived atHL Raven's Nest. Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onHL Raven's Nest's collection profile.





	The Finding of Nick Wolfe

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Daire, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HL Raven's Nest](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HL_Raven%27s_Nest). Deciding to give the stories a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HL Raven's Nest's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hlravensnest/profile).

The Finding of Nick Wolfe by JackMagist

_The Finding of Nick Wolfe_

By JackMagist 

The man walked down the darkened side street at a shambling aimless pace, his hands were in the pockets of his jeans, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped. Two months of aimless wondering and he still had not found a direction that was more appealing than any other. His life, his body had been on autopilot, often not knowing and generally not caring where he was or where he was going. He looked up as he passed before the windows of a quiet neighborhood pub and was mildly surprised to discover that it was familiar to him. 

_Oh yeah,_ he thought, _Torago._

Giving a long soft sigh, he opened the door and entered, taking a seat at the bar. He ordered a drink from the vaguely familiar bartender and sat examining himself dispassionately in the mirror. On some level he recognized what a mess he appeared, his hair was shaggy and unkempt, his beard was bristling and scruffy, his cloths were wrinkled and in need of washing and there were bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. 

_What the hell difference does it make?_ he wondered. _I'll live._

He sipped his drink and savored the taste of the strong liquor, and the burn as it warmed his throat and stomach. Then he looked at the glass in his hand, not to see it for what it was or to gauge the level of the liquid, but simply for a point on which to fix his stare. He was deep in introspection, the same introspection that had failed to yield any answers for the past two months, when he felt it. 

There was a tingling sensation over his skin, a cramping in his stomach, and a throbbing in his head. The drink slipped from his hand and spilled across the bar and he caught hold of the edge of the bar to steady himself. The feeling passed quickly and he was suddenly aware of the presence of an attractive young woman standing at the bar a couple of seats away watching him intently. 

"Hey Buddy," the bartender called as he came down the bar, towel in hand. "Are you alright?" 

"Yeah, sorry about that. Just a little dizzy spell, I'll be okay." The man answered. 

"Yeah, we get that a lot. You're not driving are you? I can call you a cab." The bartender suggested. 

"No, I'm walking, and I'm fine now, really," The man insisted, then turned his attention to the young woman who still watched him closely. 

"The usual, Mitch?" the bartender asked the woman. 

She nodded in reply "And give him a refill," she said indicating the stranger. 

The bartender raised an eyebrow at her then regarded the stranger again before he walked away to fetch the drinks. 

When he was safely out of earshot she spoke, "I feel like it was my fault you spilled your drink. You must be new, you get to where the buzz doesn't bother you so much after a while." 

"So you're..." he started, but stopped as the woman placed her finger across her lips. 

"Yes, I am. Why don't you join me at the table," she invited as the bartender returned with their drinks. 

The couple took seats at a table in the back by the jukebox, which was turned down low and playing a Michael Bolton number. The music was loud enough to mask their conversation but not drown it out. 

"My name is Michelle Webster," she said, and took a sip of her Tom Collins, not extending her hand. 

"Nick Wolfe," the stranger replied. 

"How long since the..." she paused meaningfully, "accident?" 

A derisive snort was his only reply. 

"Okay, the event. Whatever you want to call it," she prompted. 

"Two months," he responded. 

"And I'm the first of our kind you've encountered?" Michelle asked. 

"Since the night of the...Event. Yes." 

"How much do you know about what you are...About what 'We' are?" she questioned. 

"Enough I suppose. I know the rules, I know about the game, I know...There Can Be Only One," he replied. 

"Ahh yes, There Can be Only One. It's a hard concept to grasp isn't it? You and I sit here and have a friendly chat, maybe become friends over time, maybe even lovers, and yet we know that one day we may have to face each other over a pair of swords," she mused. 

"How do you live like that? How can you ever let yourself trust, or love or even relax?" Nick asked. 

"You learn," she responded cryptically. 

"You learn," he repeated, swirling the ice cubes with a finger then licking the drop of liquor from his fingertip. 

"Yeah, you learn. You learn that we are not all your enemy, nor all your friends. You learn that there are sides to all the issues and sometimes you find yourself at odds with one of us. You have choices to make about how you intend to live your life, it might be very long...so you must make good choices," she advised. 

"So how many centuries does it take to learn these things," he wondered. 

"Not so long really, you're probably actually older than I am. I was killed in an auto accident...my own fault really...about five years ago. I lost my parents, my home, everything. I never even got the chance to tell the people who raised me how much they meant to me...I didn't even realize it myself until it was too late. I made bad choices then and I will live with them, possibly for centuries," Michelle explained. 

"Your still not that old, how did you get this calm, this wisdom, you seem to have?" 

"Oh, I still make plenty of mistakes," she laughed, and continued more seriously. "But two very dear people helped me find Michelle Webster...From the looks of things it looks like you could use some help finding Nick Wolfe." 

"I guess I am quite a mess. I've been in shock I guess since it happened," he confessed. 

"Why don't you tell me about what happened, it might help," she suggested. 

"It's kind of a long story," Nick hedged. 

"One thing you and I have plenty of is time," she countered. 

Nick took the last sip from his drink and sat regarding the floor wondering where to start. 

"Try the beginning," Michelle suggested as though reading his thoughts. 

Nick told her his story. He had been a cop here in Torago until his partner had been killed trying to save a woman, a thief, who hadn't needed saving. He had quit the force in protest of the corruption and the cover-up in the case of his partner's death. 

He had worked as a private investigator and had frequently worked with the lady thief. They had become friends and had learned to trust one another until he had been poisoned by an immortal who had wanted him, Nick, out of the way while he, the other immortal, tried to recover his ill-gotten money and skip town. The poison would have killed him completely...forever...had the lady thief not 'saved his life' by shooting him to death. 

Michelle sat quietly for a moment considering his tail. And, concealing her suspicions about the identity of this mysterious Lady Thief, whom Nick seemed disinclined to name. 

"Well, technically what she did goes against the rules of the Game, but under the circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing," Michelle confided. 

"Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she give me the choice? It's my life; it should have been my decision to make. What gave Amanda Montrose the right to decide my fate?" Nick was almost yelling, as he began to grow more agitated. He subsided suddenly as he realized that he had let slip the name of the woman who had for the past two months dominated both his dreams and his nightmares. 

"Hey, fella!" Michelle blurted, beginning to lose patience with this stranger, "If you want a choice, I have one for you right here in my coat. We can step out in the alley and you can make your choice here and now." 

Taken aback by the vehemence of the young immortal across the table from him, Nick paused to consider for a moment. 

"You're immortal, not indestructible," she continued more quietly. "If you don't like the choice Amanda made it can be reversed. She did what her conscience told her to. She must have believed that you were worth saving, that the world would be better off with you in it. And if I know Amanda she would do it again even knowing your reaction...She must have cared a great deal for you." 

Again Nick was given pause to consider. 

"Did you get any instruction in swordplay?" Michelle asked, changing the subject. 

"No, I've been wandering for the past two months, before that I didn't know what I was," Nick replied, and thought to himself, _And was so arrogantly proud of the fact that I was NOT immortal._

"Sooner or later your going to run up against another immortal who will try to take your head. They will likely be older with a lot more power and a lot of experience and if you do not learn, and Learn Well, Amanda's choice will be irrelevant. You will be dead," Michelle admonished. 

"Do you propose to teach me the sword?" he asked. 

"Hardly," she laughed. 

"I'm not ready to face Amanda again. Not yet," he stated. 

"Remember I told you that there were two people who helped me find myself after my wreck?" she asked. 

Nick nodded and watched her thoughtfully. 

"Well, Amanda was one of those people. I'll take you to meet the other. He lives in Seacouver and Amanda says he is probably the best swordsman in the Game. If he is there, he leaves town for long stretches sometimes, Duncan MacLeod will be the best teacher you can hope for," she told him, and added with a sly grin, "I may even stay around and let him teach me a few things." 

Noting the tone of her voice and her grin Nick wondered, _Now what have I gotten into?_

* * *

Three days later the two young immortals stepped off of a plane in Seacouver, collected their luggage and caught a cab for DeSalvo's Gym. Nick had stayed at Michelle's place while she had contacted MacLeod and made the arrangements for the trip. He had collected some of his personal belongings from storage and had cleaned himself up, shaved and gotten a haircut. He had also slept well for the first time since leaving Paris. 

The cab pulled up in front of the unassuming red brick building and left them off. They climbed the front stairs with their bags and entered the building into the foyer that lead into the dojo. They both stopped as they felt the Presence of a third immortal, the effect of the buzz on Nick was not as severe as it had been when he had meet Michelle in the bar, even though the Presence of Duncan MacLeod could be felt from much farther away. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Michelle continued on into the dojo with Nick close behind. 

When Michelle spotted Duncan coming out of the office wearing sweats with the neck and sleeves cut out she ran to him hugging him tightly and purred, "Duncan do you want to give me those lessons we didn't get to now?" 

Not missing the double entendre, Duncan, with a chagrined chuckled, began to try and extricate himself from the grasp of the young immortal. 

"Nice to see you again, Michelle," he said patiently. 

Looking past her at the stranger watching from a few feet inside the doorway he asked, "Who's your friend?" 

Taking the cue Nick stepped into the gym, dropped his bags on the floor beside Michelle's and came forward to meet the man, the immortal, that Michelle had talked so much about. He took in the scene with the eye of a professional noting his surroundings quickly without making a show of doing so. 

Stepping away from the clinging young woman, Duncan offered his hand saying in a formal tone with a decidedly Scottish accent, "I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." 

"The name is Wolfe, Nick Wolfe," Nick responded. Taking the proffered hand he gripped it firmly in a quick handshake. In that short instance, the two men continued their subtle evaluation of one another, testing grip and response. 

Duncan had recognized the man's observant glances, and his competently controlled and balanced movement. He also noted the slight bulge under the left side of the stranger's jacket indicating the presence of a concealed handgun. And too, he noted that he was being sized up just as he was sizing up the stranger. They were close to the same height at around 6'1" and the same build, both having trained in martial arts and/or boxing. 

Michelle continued to stand much too close to MacLeod running her finger teasingly over his exposed upper chest, and explained, "He is the new immortal I was telling you about." 

Pushing her hand gently away, Duncan invited the two to accompany him and headed for the lift. They retrieved their bags and followed. 

Riding the lift up, Duncan asked, "How long has it been since it happened?" 

"Just over two months," Nick's reply was short and offered no information beyond what was specifically asked for. 

As the lift reached the loft that Duncan was once again calling home, he asked, "Did Michelle tell you that I'm not prepared to take on a student at the moment?" 

"No, she didn't mention that," he replied with a sidelong, questioning glance at Michelle. 

She responded with a shrug of her shoulder and her most innocent little smile. 

_She's Amanda's student alright,_ Nick thought. Aloud he said, "Yeah, I can understand that. Why train someone that you might someday have to fight." 

Mac stiffened, drew a sharp intake of breath and, in annoyance, retorted, "That is not the reason." 

Unbidden thoughts of Richie lying in a headless heap sprang to the Highlanders mind, and he continued more subdued. "At least not precisely, not in the way you think." 

Mac raised the lift gate and they entered the loft. Gesturing to the bar in the kitchen area he invited his visitors to sit and offered them a drink. 

When the drinks had been served and they were all seated around the kitchen bar, Duncan began. "It has been only two years since I had my last student. That didn't end well and I won't take on that responsibility...Never again...." 

"Why would you teach another immortal anyway?" Nick asked. 

"Because there are two sides to everything. If 'In the End, There Can Be Only One' I would want that 'one' to be someone who thinks as I do about good and evil, right and wrong. I would only train someone that I felt would be a good man...as I try to be," the Highlander explained. 

"And you don't think I am that sort of person?" Nick challenged. 

"That's not what I said," Mac responded, his Scottish brogue thickening as he became more exasperated. He was not going to tell this stranger about what had happened at a deserted racetrack in Paris two years ago. He didn't want to even think about it, much less tell a total stranger. 

"I don't even know why I let Michelle talk me into coming here. I don't want to be part of the Game and you don't want to teach me. I know the rules, I've heard the reasons, I'll survive or not, I'm not sure it really matters," Nick blurted in confused anger as he grabbed his bags and tossed them into the lift ahead of him. 

"Wait Nick," Michelle called as she hurried after him. But the lift gate was already closed and the lift was starting to descend. 

As the lift dropped from sight, Michelle turned to the immortal who had once tried to be her teacher at a time when she had wanted none. She could not believe that he had refused this man so abruptly. 

"Duncan, why?" she pleaded. 

"I'm sorry Michelle, I can't...not now," he replied. 

"Mac, he is new. I got in touch with Amanda, and she told me about him. He was a cop; he quit the force as a matter of his principles. He is a good, law-abiding man who cares about people. He is exactly what you say we all should be, and you refuse to help him...Why?" she demanded. 

Duncan stared for a moment, his mind in it's own whorl of confusion and torment. He didn't want to tell Michelle about what had happened to Richie. Didn't want to tell her that had she stayed as his pupil it might well have been her who died at his hands in Paris. 

In his anger and his shame he blurted, "I canna teach anyone now. I'll not have it on my head again." 

So saying, the Highlander left hastily by the street side door. He was not even sure where he was going but he had to get away and order his thoughts. He had thought he had put the incident of Richie's death behind him, but it had all come boiling to the surface once again. When faced with the prospect of training another student, even one obviously so much more competent and world wise than Richie had been, he had been horrified. 

* * *

**_Two Weeks Later_**

Nick sat alone in the cheap motel where he had taken a room. The bottle of whiskey sat empty upon the table in front of him and he stared at it in disbelief. 

_This is what I've come too? I sit alone and get drunk every day. Alone, no friends...did I ever have friends?_ he thought morosely, his mind replaying the last few weeks. 

After leaving MacLeod's dojo, Nick had been out on the street, adrift and without direction once again. He had thought that perhaps he would have been able to find himself here. Michelle had spoken so highly of this Duncan MacLeod. She had told him what a wise and caring man he was, but it seemed that he had been just another immortal looking after his own head. There it was again, the damn Game; he wanted no part of it. 

_What do I do now?_ he had asked himself. _I have no place to go, no one to turn to._

The same self-pity that he had wallowed in for two months before meeting Michelle had reasserted itself. He recognized it for the dangerous and self-destructive attitude that it was, but he could not shake his melancholy. He didn't have much money left and he was alone in a strange city. Not wanting to go back and ask Michelle for help and not willing to call upon his former employer and old friend Bert Myers, he didn't know where to turn. At last, he had come upon this old motel that rented rooms by the week or by the hour. 

It hadn't been difficult to find a job as a security guard in the warehouse district. It didn't pay very well but it kept the roof, albeit leaky, over his head and it bought whiskey to drown his woes. 

It was time to go to work and he was drunk. It wasn't the first time but no one had said anything before. He had actually foiled a warehouse heist his first week on the job and his employer was cutting him some slack. _Besides,_ he thought, _this damn immortality will burn the booze out of my system soon enough._

That evening as he patrolled the three warehouses he was assigned to, he thought he heard a noise inside of the last one. As he approached the door to investigate, he was stricken by the unmistakable sensation of the Presence of another immortal. 

Nick stood frozen in place and listened to the voices inside. 

"It's the security guard, I thought you said he was passed out?" accused a high pitched nasal voice. 

"He was dead drunk when he relieved me, and I left him another bottle. He was drinking it when I left," responded a somewhat deeper and vaguely familiar voice. 

"Leave him to me," interjected a third voice, this one a strong baritone. "Get the truck loaded and get out. I'll take care of the security guard." 

"Yes sir," the other two replied as one. 

Nick realized his peril immediately. He had obviously interrupted a heist and the leader was an immortal. Now he would have to face another immortal and he had no sword and no training to use it if did have one, or he could run. 

Nick made it to the security shack and dialed 911. He had given them the address when he again felt the Presence of the immortal, then the phone went dead. In the doorway stood a tall heavyset man. He was a full two inches taller than Nick and maybe forty pounds heavier, forty pounds of muscle for the man was obviously in shape. 

The stranger stood calmly and said, "I'm Graham Crosby," and went en-guard with the German style hand-and-a half sword that he carried. 

When Nick made no reply, Crosby shrugged and said, "Have it your way." 

As the heavy sword descended toward his neck, Nick drew his sidearm and fired without thinking. Crosby stared at the pistol in shocked disbelief. He had been shot before, many times in fact, but never by an immortal that he faced with a sword. 

The shots were true, striking him squarely in the chest and taking him off his feet. The sword clanged on the floor and the shot immortal lay still. Nick picked up the sword and stood poised over the prone body. 

"So there can be only one, ehh," he said, standing over the prone body ready to strike, but his personal code of honor reasserted itself and the blow never fell. 

Nick stashed the sword under the guard building and went to meet the police who were arriving just in time to apprehend the hijackers, one of whom was the guard he had relieved. When he returned with the police to the guard building, however, Crosby was gone. Nick explained that the blood on the floor came from the gang's leader, that they had fought and the man had cut himself on his own knife. The patrolman who took his statement was young and did not recognize the splatter pattern of a gunshot wound...much to Nick's relief. 

Nick was relieved from his shift several hours later, but not before he had recovered the sword and moved it to a place where he could later claim it unseen. He was on his way back to the motel; it was early morning and still dark. The sword was under his arm wrapped in an old coat that one of the other guards had left in the guard shack. 

As he headed down a dark alley, a shortcut to the motel, he felt again the Presence of an immortal. He heard a short cruel laugh and felt a bullet rip into his chest as the sound of a shot rang in his ears. 

"Ha, turnabout's fair play," Crosby sneered, as he bent over to retrieve his lost sword. 

* * *

Nick bolted awake to find himself in a small dark cell. A bare cot was the only furnishing and the floor was cold, dusty concrete. The door was of sturdy steel reinforced construction as the angry young immortal discovered when he tried to break it down. Still rubbing his sore shoulder he was only mildly surprised to feel an immortal Presence. 

"Glad to see you're recovered," Crosby's deep baritone rumbled from the other side of the door. 

"Yeah, I feel just great. Thanks for the concern." Nick's reply dripped with sarcasm. 

"I'm going to unlock the door in a moment and we will have a little talk." Crosby continued, "Please don't try anything tricky if you want your chance to live." 

"It's your Game, I guess I'll have to play by your rules," Nick responded, thinking to himself, _For now._

In a few minutes the door latch clicked and Nick was able to exit the cell. He entered into a large empty, dimly lit, circular chamber. A few moments of examination told him he was inside a large tank such as might be found in a refinery or granary. There was a catwalk around the top some forty feet above his head and there was no ladder or door to allow escape. Watching from a catwalk high above was the immortal who had captured him. 

"You are obviously a new immortal...You do know that you are immortal do you not?" Crosby began. 

"Yeah, I know I'm immortal," Nick responded. 

"Good, then you should know that we have rules that we must live by," pausing for effect he continued, "And DIE by." 

"Yes, I know about the rules," Nick confirmed. 

"Well, apparently you don't know them very well...You SHOT me...We do not SHOOT one another, we CUT OFF each other's HEADS...Shooting is very bad form." Crosby lectured. 

"Oh, excuse me. I suppose I should have just stood there and let you behead me rather than show 'bad form,'" the younger immortal retorted. 

"It would have been simpler," Crosby chuckled. "By the way, what is your name? It is also bad form to refuse to give your name. We like to know whose head were taking." 

"A thousand pardons. It seems I was totally rude in my attempt to stay alive. I'm Nick Wolfe, I do hope you'll pardon me but I can't seem to recall your name. I was more focused on the sword in your hand at the time," Nick responded. 

"Yes, very rude," the older immortal continued to chuckle apparently finding the situation very amusing. "I'm Graham Crosby, do try to remember it this time. You should at least know the name of the man who is going to kill you." 

"If you're going to kill me, why all of this?" Nick demanded gesturing around him at his prison. 

"It's no sport to kill an unarmed opponent. And in this Game unskilled is unarmed," with that Crosby picked up a bundle from the catwalk and tossed it to the floor below, "Open it," he instructed. 

Nick walked cautiously to the bundle and picked it up. He carried it to the opposite side of the tank before unrolling the bundle. Inside were six more, smaller bundles. In each of the smaller bundles was a sword, each a different type. They were a Japanese katana, a Prussian sabre, a Spanish broadsword, an English cutlass, an American cavalry sabre, an Arabian scimitar, and a German bastard sword. 

The imprisoned immortal looked up from the collection of weaponry and asked, "What is this?" 

"I'm going to teach you to fight. When you get good enough to give me a credible fight, I'm going to kill you," was the matter-of-fact reply. 

"Then why should I bother to learn? You obviously have a lot more skill and knowledge about this sort of thing than I do. Even if I learn, you'll still take my head," Nick reasoned. 

"Because if you don't try to learn, I'll take your head now. Besides, you might get lucky or you might actually win outright," Crosby paused a moment for effect then continued slowly and ominously, "I did when I killed my teacher." 

"I was told that teachers and students were usually friends that wouldn't fight one another," Nick said with a questioning gaze. 

"I was told 'There Can Be Only One,'" Crosby replied coldly. 

"Yeah, I heard something about that too," Nick admitted. 

"Okay then, choose your weapon. You look to be a strong enough fellow, that bastard sword might work for you. You have strong wrist too. I could tell by the way you handled the recoil from your pistol when you shot me," Crosby said, discussing being shot as casually as a mortal would discuss a drink of scotch. 

Seeing his prisoner select the long curved scimitar and test it for balance, the older immortal remarked, "That sword would work well for you, take a bit longer to learn the style I think. It requires a bit more finesse than the bastard sword but it gives a better cut, doesn't work as well for a thrust, though." 

"Cutting is what we do isn't it?" the prisoner asked. 

"Now you're getting the idea, lad," Crosby laughed. "Swing it about and let's see how it feels to you. But be careful and don't cut off your own head, that's for me to do." 

After several hours of testing the different swords for weight and balance. Nick looked up at his captor and asked, "Are you going to take my head or starve me to death?" 

"It is about that time isn't it? Hold on and I'll be right back." 

"Yeah, like I'm going somewhere," Nick retorted. 

About an hour later Nick again felt the Presence of the older immortal when he returned with a picnic basket that he lowered on a rope. Nick ate a hearty meal of roast beef cooked with carrots and potatoes, and brown gravy. Crosby had even included a bottle of fine port to accompany the dinner. 

As Nick ate his dinner Crosby began to talk. "I have never had a student before. Not in the eight hundred years that I have been immortal. The only dealings I have ever had with other immortals was to take their heads...It's quite a rush you know. The quickening surging through you, the knowledge you gain...If you want it...I know that some immortals go and meditate for weeks after taking a head. The last one I took was an immortal who did that and I somehow felt compelled to do it myself...I've actually been thinking about getting out of the headhunting business." 

"How did you deal with the quickenings before that last one?" Nick asked between bites. 

"Oh, I would just put it out of my mind. Sometimes I'd get drunk if the memories were too troublesome. They fade after a bit and you just go on. The memories are still there if you look for them hard enough...Like your childhood memories probably are." 

"Didn't you ever care what those people had done, what they had been?" Nick inquired. 

"Only once did I care to examine any of them...My teacher...What I found was too disturbing. I couldn't believe what I discovered and I never wanted to find out about another," Crosby explained. 

* * *

**Near the City of Jerusalem, 1192**

The battle had been fierce but Graham had been through many such battles since coming to the Crusades. He had come not for any altruistic or noble reasons, he was there because the life of a Saxon orphan in England offered no promises under the heel of the Norman conquerors. Richard the Lionhearted had offered the opportunity for fortune and glory, a chance at a better life than that of the stable hand Graham had been. 

He was searching the bodies of the fallen enemies for gold and jewels as he had been instructed. He approached the body of a large Moorish warrior, one that Graham remembered had fought remarkably well in the battle. In fact it had taken the coordinated efforts of four hardened combat veterans working in unison to bring him down. It had been Graham's own sword that had taken the enemy warrior through the heart, so he was sure the great warrior was dead. It was therefore a great shock when the Saxon bent over the Moor and the infidel plunged a jambiya into his gut, the curve of the blade taking it up into the chest cavity to sever the heart and lung. 

Graham was aware of the strange jolt of eerie energy that flooded him as he fell dying in the desert sand. He was aware of the strange smile on the face of the Moorish warrior before he ran from the battlefield. The other English soldiers were too shocked at the revival to react in time to stop the infidel's flight. 

It was some hours later when Graham jolted awake to discover he was covered with sand. He struggled to fight his way out of the shallow grave and was sitting on the sand trying to get the grit out of his eyes when he was overcome with a strange tingling sensation that seemed to wrench his insides. As the sensation passed he was surprised to see the Moorish warrior who had stabbed him sitting upon a camel watching him. 

"So Englishman, you have come around. I shall tell you what you are, and I shall teach you the way of our Game...Before I kill you," the Moor stated flatly. 

"What...what are you...talking about?" Graham asked as he spat sand from his mouth. 

"You are alive are you not? And, I am alive am I not? And, did we not kill one another?" the man asked. 

Thinking a moment, Graham slowly nodded his head in agreement. He accepted the hand of the former enemy and swung up on the camel's back. 

**One Year Later**

The last year had been a strange one indeed. Graham now knew that he was immortal, as was Ali Habib, the Moorish warrior who had taken him from his desert gravesite. They had trained together and he had learned the ways of the immortals. He had learned the rules of the Game and had learned more about the use of a sword than he would ever have believed. He had been a battle hardened warrior and, so he had thought, well schooled in the use of weapons. Now he realized that he had been only a novice compared to the swordsmaster that Ali Habib had proven to be. 

The sun was just coming up and Graham was going to join Ali for their morning rituals of prayer, each to their own God, and sword practice. On this day, however, there was another man present when Graham came out of the tent they shared out in the desert. The newcomer gave the Englishman a look of pure hatred and his hand went to the curved scimitar at his side. 

Before the older immortal could move to intervene, the newcomer had closed on the former crusader with drawn sword. Graham was barely able to get his own sword unsheathed in time to deflect a killing stroke and acting purely on instinct, buried his blade in the strangers stomach. 

"NOOOOoooo!" Ali Habib had screamed as he ran to the man who lay fallen and dying in the sand. 

Graham, for his own part, did not feel any remorse at the death. The man had attacked and he had defended himself. He had long since quit feeling guilt at the killing of an enemy and his lack of remorse must have shown on his face when Ali Habib looked up from the dead man in his arms. 

"You have killed my brother!!!" the Moor screamed. 

"He attacked, I had no choice," Graham protested. 

"Have I not taught you to disarm a man? Is it so natural for you to kill my people that you would not even try to let him live?" Ali Habib asked in a voice gone cold and all too calm as he rose and drew his own scimitar. 

"Ali, My friend, I did not know. I only reacted, I didn't have time to think," the Englishman tried to explain as he back cautiously away from his teacher. 

"Well, now you have time to think...But only a short time...My Friend," Ali spat the last two words as he flew into a flurry of attacks. 

Graham had been an apt pupil though and parried the attacks skillfully. Then he launched a series of attacks of his own, a combination of cuts and thrust that were in turn parried. The battle went back and forth in this manner for several minutes with each man going deeper into his bag of tricks. In the end it was a trick that Graham had learned from his first sword instructor and not from Ali Habib that decided their duel. 

As the combatants had circled around looking for an advantage Graham had tripped over the body of Ali's fallen brother, or so it had appeared. In reality the former Crusader had known very well where the body was and the trip was a ploy. As the Moor rushed in to take advantage of the supposed mistake, Graham had dropped to one knee under the swing of the scimitar and had scored a solid hit to Ali's swordarm, almost severing it at the elbow. The scimitar had gone flying and the great Moorish warrior barely had time to realize that he was about to die when the English broadsword took him in the neck. 

The whirlwinds and bolts of immortal lightning from the quickening had left the camp in ruins and the camel and the stranger's horse had vanished into the desert. Only the fact that he was immortal had allowed the Saxon to make it out of the desert and eventually back to Europe and England. 

* * *

"That scimitar that you have been swinging, oddly enough is the very one that Ali Habib tried to kill me with," Crosby interjected as he finished his tail to Nick. 

"But you meditated on the quickening of Ali Habib," Nick observed. "Why" 

"Well now, I had little choice didn't I. What else are you going to do lying in the sand dying of thirst? Turns out that what he knew of the desert helped me get out, though I suppose that I would have made it sooner or later," the old crusader explained. 

"Why didn't you ever contemplate any of the other quickenings you took?" Nick wondered. 

"You ask a lot of questions lad," Crosby complained before taking a pull from a bottle of wine he had brought for himself. Then he continued, "I guess that it was because of what I learned about Ali Habib...I had thought him my friend...But I learned that he had hated me all along. When I killed his friend it broke the last bit of restraint that he had and he would have been happy to take my head. Hell he was relieved to have the excuse to take my head." 

Nick wiped his hands and picked up the scimitar that lay near at hand. He examined the weapon carefully as he observed Graham Crosby in his peripheral vision. The old immortal drank deeply from the bottle of wine and wiped tears from his eyes. Nick had the feeling that those tears had been held in check for over eight hundred years. 

Three months passed and Graham had taken to coming down into the tank to spar with Nick. Then he began to stay on for conversations that grew longer each day. Often they would sit together until late in the evening. Theirs was an odd relationship Nick became not only prisoner but also a surrogate Father Confessor to the Old Saxon. 

At first Graham talked about his life. How he had spent it as a smuggler, a pirate, and a hijacker though now he only did it out of habit for he had a comfortable savings stashed in Zurich. 

_Thieves,_ Nick thought, _why do I always fall in with Immortal **Thieves**?_

Crosby also talked about how he had never had a wife or a family or even a lover for more than a few nights at a time. He claimed never to have made friends with anyone, certainly not another immortal. And he spoke of his perpetual loneliness and how he was beginning to believe that staying alive really wasn't worth the sacrifices he had made of himself. 

Nick was surprised to learn that Graham knew about the Watchers. But as Graham explained, "I saw those guys always hanging around with that medallion around their neck for years. When one of them kept showing up all the time I made a point of catching him and strangling the truth out of the little blighter. I doubt he ever told them what had happened so they probably don't know that I know, which is good. Since I know who and what they are I can ditch them when I don't want them around. I dare say that far more immortals know about the Watchers than they would like to believe." 

As the days turned into weeks, Graham began talking about the different immortals he had killed. He claimed that it was the first time he had even thought of many of them and he began to recall the things about them that he had long suppressed. Often he would make comments to the effect of "Too bad about that one. He wasn't a bad sort," or, "She was really a lovely woman, maybe I should have passed on her." 

The two immortals would sit long into the night and discuss philosophy. Nick was quite well read as was Graham, and Graham could draw on the experiences of literally hundreds of immortals whose heads he had taken. They would sit and analyze the deeper meanings of life and the teachings of the great philosophers such as Socrates and Marcus Aurelius or the teachings set forth by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. 

In time, Nick came to tell him about Amanda and about Michelle and MacLeod. He told him about his taking of two heads before becoming immortal, one by accident and one with an intentional stroke of a sword. He told how the quickenings had been triggered and how Amanda had received one quickening and the other had blown itself out on nothing, an occurrence the likes of which Graham had never heard. Finally he told about his own death at Amanda's hands and her reasons and his reaction to it and the reasons for his reaction...and Graham didn't disagree. 

Early one evening as they sat talking Graham asked, "Did this Amanda you told me about ever tell you what she knows about the Gathering, when it will happen or what the prize is? I have never gleaned any information about the Gathering. I was told that it would happen and that I would feel an irresistible urge to travel somewhere 'far away', whatever that means, to 'fight for the prize', whatever that is. In 800 years I have had no such urge and in all the quickenings I've taken I've never learned anything useful about this Gathering. No one even seems to know where the legend, or idea, or concept, or whatever you want to call it, came from. I'm beginning to believe the whole idea was made up by mortals...Watchers maybe...so we would keep killing each other off. Sort of a population control effort. Or maybe the idea was to keep us at each others throats, or necks, so we wouldn't join together and rule the world as masters of the mortals." 

Nick, of course, knew no more than Graham, but he asked. "So for 800 years you've been hunting and killing people on the basis of what is essentially a **rumor**?" 

"I'm afraid so lad, call me a slow learner. Only lately have I begun to doubt that what I was doing was the right and natural thing to do. I never really thought of it as hunting and killing. I've killed to survive since before I was immortal and I just never thought to question it. Now I wonder what I've missed by not becoming friends with any other immortals. No one to talk to who 'remembers when'. No old buddies to grumble with about how the ale's not as good as it used to be. And truth is lad, I'm tired of killing." Graham admitted. 

"Why don't you just put down your sword?" Nick asked. 

"Like Geronimo, eh?...'I will fight no more forever'...Well lad, there's always one more headhunter out there...One more just like me...and you fight or you die, it's that simple." 

"So we go through life hunting heads and that's it?" questioned the young immortal. 

"No lad we don't. I'm tired of living that way. And I don't think your fine sensibilities will allow you to live that way either, do you?" The Old Saxon reasoned. 

Crosby stood up rather unexpectedly and said, "Nick my boy, I have decided not to kill you after all...At least not now. I may have to at some point down the road when and **IF** the Gathering ever gets here, but I'll make a deal with you. I'll not fight you unless we're the last two. As long as you don't come after my head, I won't come after yours." 

Nick, in spite of himself, had come to like Graham and to enjoy his company. He intellectualized that his attraction was probably something akin to the Helsinki syndrome. But, he liked the man despite their differences and so he agreed to the pact. 

"Get your sword and come along Lad, from this point on I live as I should have for the last 800 years. I'll not go hunting heads, unless it's some blackguard who just needs killing, I'll not fight unless someone challenges me," Graham said, turning his back on Nick and heading for the rope ladder that he used to climb into and out of the tank. 

Nick picked up the scimitar and looked at the back of Graham's neck. The man had been his captor for three long months and now he presented his own head for Nick's taking. But Nick had given his word and he was still a man of principles, so he sheathed the sword under his jacket as Graham had shown him and started up the ladder after him. 

On the car ride that took them halfway across town, Nick pondered this latest turn of events in the upheaval that was his life. He started to realize that he had been on the verge of becoming just like his new friend Graham had been. How ironic that a friendship with a man who had shot him and held him prisoner for three months would lead him to the Finding of Nick Wolfe...the Immortal. 

* * *

**Disclaimer:** _Highlander_ and _Highlander: the Raven_ are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions. The characters of Nick Wolfe, Duncan MacLeod and Michelle Webster and Amanda are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions. The character Graham Crosby is my own creation and property. I would like to thank petshark and night owl MacMerlin for their insight into the nature and attitudes of Nick Wolfe, and Daire for her time and effort in posting this work of fanfiction. 

© 11/16/1999   
Please send comments to the author! 

* * *


End file.
